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People and Law: Government Force or Liberty of Opportunity?

Egalitarianism: Is it Equality of Opportunity or Government Forcing Everyone to be the Same?

Month-Defining Moment

Defining Moment: What is Egalitarianism?

If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion. ~Friedrich August von Hayek

Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality – an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order. ~Friedrich August von Hayek

We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice. ~Friedrich August von Hayek

Rousseau’s Error

John Adams was in France when Jean Jacques Rousseau was teaching that all men were designed to be equal in every way. Adams wrote:

That all men are born to equal rights is true. Every being has a right to his own, as clear, as moral, as sacred, as any other being has …But to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties, to equal influence in society, to equal property and advantages through life, is as gross a fraud, as glaring an imposition on the credulity of the people as ever was practiced by monks, by Druids, by Brahmins, …or by the self-styled philosophers of the French Revolution.

The answer is that everyone’s individual differences should be accepted, but be treated as equals as human beings. Constitutional writer Clarence Carson describes two ways all persons should have their equality guaranteed:

1) Equality before the law. This means that every man’s case is tried by the same law governing any particular case. Practically, it means that there are no different laws for different classes and orders of men [as there were in ancient times]. The definition of premeditated murder is the same for the millionaire as for the tramp. A corollary of this is that no classes are created or recognized by law.

2) Each man has an equal title to God-given liberties along with every other.

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US Constitution Series 7: The Proper Role of Government is to Protect Equal Rights, Not provide Equal Things

What happens when you have Government enforced “equality?” An analogy

Obama: The Best Crony Capitalist Since Mussolini

“Barack Obama has wrapped himself in egalitarianism all his political career and now that dissatisfaction with his goal of ‘transforming’ America …

Rush Limbaugh

RUSH: Well, that’s what some of them want. Obama wants to be the dictator; the people on Wall Street want to be the subjects. Some of these people on Wall Street actually want that. Some of these protesters, the Occupy Wall Street Now, some of them actually want that. Some of them actually want to be serfs. That’s how they look at freedom and equality, and egalitarianism and so forth. That’s what some of them want. That’s what they’ve been taught, and it’s superior, it’s fairer, it’s better for everybody. A lot of them are saying, “Look, go ahead and stay in business, we love what you make, just don’t make a profit. Why can’t you make iPhones and just break even? Why do you have to show a profit?”

That’s their mentality. Why can’t you provide us what we want but why do you have to make a profit in the process? That’s objectifying us, that’s taking advantage of people, that’s overcharging people, that’s just unfair, why don’t you just do what you do — this is a very naive thought, but many people have it, particularly young, idealistic people. Why don’t you make that car and sell it to us for no more than what it cost you and then everybody would be happy. You’ll make the cars, we’ll buy the cars, we’ll be able to buy the cars at a much cheaper price and then everybody will be able to afford one. But the minute people start putting profit into it, that’s where we have problems because that’s exploitation and unfairness. That’s what they’re taught. Some people are just oriented toward being slaves, natural born subservient people, and they will give away their freedom as fast as they can, at the same time trying to get you to do the same thing.

Did Christianity give us gay marriage?

By Alex McFarland

As long as God keeps making human beings and the Holy Spirit works among them in this world, that which is false cannot ultimately prevail.

An editorial by religion writer Damon Linker asserts that the current push for gay marriage is really an inevitable outgrowth of … Christianity. He attempts to support this unlikely conclusion in several ways, invoking the Bible (as he understands it) and American history.

Linker insinuates that evangelicals – the prime supporters of “traditional” marriage in the U.S. at least – should not be surprised that homosexuals want to marry and are being successful in their demands to do so. After all, he reasons, Christianity (and America) are about equality.

But I find at least four things wrong with such a line of thought. These are:

1. Mischaracterization of the Bible’s concept of equality. Egalitarianism (which Linker attributes to Scripture) says that there are no inherent differences between men and women. By this definition, all social constructs related to the sexes (such as marriage and gender roles) should not be defended as unique in any way. In an egalitarian world, no social order should be preferred above another.

But this is not what the Bible teaches. The truly Christian position on men and women, gender roles, human sexuality and marriage is one of complementariansim. Men and women are complementary. Definitely equals in the sense of being made in God’s image, having equal worth, value, dignity and purpose. However, men and women are clearly unique in functions, in strengths, in abilities and in areas of interest.

2. Linker interprets advances of the gay agenda in a positive light, and supports this by referencing Alexis de Tocqueville. But to do this, he misrepresents Tocqueville’s writings that deal with American equality.

Tocqueville spoke of Christianity’s influence in America with a clarity that is hard to miss. Tocqueville does write about “the march of equality,” but this march is able to take place because of the Judeo-Christian backdrop before which America stands. A slight (and often fluctuating) equalization between the rich and poor is not the same as a deconstruction of that most fundamental human institution, the home.

America has changed the social order of millions in an economic sense, but it does not follow that a new order must (or should) come in a moral sense. Linker certainly stretches things in trying to sanction the modern gay agenda by invoking Democracy In America (Vols. I and II, 1835 and 1840, respectively).

3. Like many today Linker invokes what I call “a Bible without boundaries.” He defends radical egalitarianism by referencing Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Christ’s words as found in Matthew 5-7 are a favorite text of defenders of homosexuality, relativism, religious pluralism, leftism and many other “isms.” Those who see Jesus as the ultimate egalitarian will often support their position by reminding people of the unlimited love and grace of God.

Yes, God is love (I John 4:8). And His grace has been offered to all men (Titus 3:5). God’s love prompted Him to come to earth, die, rise and make it possible for humans to be saved from their sins (John 3:16). And speaking of sin, Scripture teaches that our guilt before God is a gravely serious matter. The Bible even lists a whole bunch of sins that, if not repented of, will keep a person out of heaven (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

4. Linker’s article opens by calling widespread embrace of gay marriage “all but assured.” For about four decades now, the gay agenda has been marketed to the American people. Pro-gay messaging has been subtly introduced through entertainment, postured in scholarly terms for the classroom, and railroaded in through politics.

Fortuitous timing for the gay movement, it arose after much of the religious establishment of the West had spent a century being infected with liberal thought and Darwinian social theory. By the dawn of the 1970s, lobbyists for homosexuality were not strongly opposed by clergy whose job it was to stand for the Bible.

But let me encourage all who believe that God’s design for marriage and morality is still true and relevant. That which is morally right and factually true has a way of prevailing – even to the point of trumping propaganda campaigns that are well organized, well funded and nearly unrelenting. History has shown us this.

As long as God keeps making human beings and the Holy Spirit works among them in this world, that which is false cannot ultimately prevail.

Why can we trust God in this age of moral relativism? Because God keeps His word. The truth in the Word of God is absolute. Right and wrong are absolute, eternal. His truth does not hide from inquiry, is not swayed by popular opinion, does not cower before tyrants. ~C.A. Davidson

All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator. ~Alma 30:44

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” ~Daniel Patrick Moynihan

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~George Orwell

Absolute truth exists in a world that increasingly disdains and dismisses absolutes. ~David A. Bednar

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. ~3 John 1:4

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ~John 8:32

It is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. ~1 John 5:6